


Adaptation

by IsisKitsune



Series: Prompt Fics [15]
Category: Incredible Hulk - All Media Types, Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Child Abuse, Chronological Character Death, Gen, Mutant!Bruce, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-24
Updated: 2012-10-24
Packaged: 2017-11-16 23:48:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/545160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IsisKitsune/pseuds/IsisKitsune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce is a mutant... All this time he'd thought Hulk was the cause of his problems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adaptation

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a [Prompt](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/9218.html?thread=19681538)

Prologue (age 4)

Bruce hid behind the denim clad legs, sniffling as he heard his mother and father yelling inside the house. “Is it because of me this time?”

“Nah kid, I think it’s because of me,” Bruce felt a slightly hesitant hand pat his hair before the man crouched down and smiled at him.

“Why would they fight about you, Uncle Logan?”

“Cause I knew yer mama awhile back, before they were together and I think your dad doesn’t like me very much.”

Bruce snorted, frowning, “He doesn’t like me either… Calls me a monster.”

Logan smiled and hugged Bruce, not knowing what else to do really. “Yer not a monster kid, you’re just special.”

“Special enough dad hates me,” Bruce sniffled.

“You’ll see, one day. It’s not your fault, none of it is.” Logan let the small boy go, “I need you to do one thing for me,” Bruce blinked up, making Logan smirk at the fact that the scrape that had previously been on his cheek was now gone. “Next time, stand your ground. Bullies only keep attacking you if you don’t stand up for yourself.”

Bruce looked away, thinking, then nodded, “Okay, Uncle Logan, I’ll try.”

-

Bruce couldn’t remember much of that night… The night dad had snapped; that mom had stopped moving. Later, he didn’t remember taking his uncle’s advice either. Too late, he reached for the door stop (a crystal covered stone he’d found one day and his mother had liked and kept) and ran to help her. He never noticed the sudden shimmer of crystal down his arm as he swung it to defend his mother. His father went down, stunned and probably concussed from the blow as the child just threw himself over his mother’s prone form, glaring up at his father, daring him to try to hit her again. The man was stunned, morbidly fascinated at the crystals spreading over the boy’s body in defense of him and his mother. “I always knew you were a monster…”

Those words, those were the only clear thing Bruce had remembered, that and the anger. That always seemed the constant.

 

Chapter 1

Bruce tore off his glasses, throwing them to the table to rub his eyes. He’s been at it too long, the damn numbers were jumping off the screen, or maybe JARVIS was trying to be helpful due to his vision imparity, either way it was giving him a headache. “JARVIS, go ahead and shut down the screens, I’m too tired to continue.”

“As you wish Dr. Banner,” Bruce grumbled for the millionth time ‘Bruce’ but didn’t make it above a whisper really. He knew the AI would call him by an honorific no matter what.

“Thanks JARVIS,” Bruce called automatically as he left the lab, grumbling when he realized he’d forgotten his glasses. Oh well, he didn’t need them to go to bed, and he knew Tony wouldn’t do anything stupid with them if he found them while Bruce was out.

Bruce decided a hot bath would be a good thing. To relieve the tension in his shoulders and back from hours of leaning over a computer screen while trying to find the answer to his ever present green problem. Something scented, lavender maybe… That always seemed to calm the other guy down. Bruce didn’t think much of it as he dumped a half a bottle of lavender oil into the tub as it filled. God, was everything in Stark tower ‘orgy’ sized?! Well, even the other guy could enjoy the bath if it ever came to that, Bruce thought darkly the first time he’d seen it.

Bruce signed as he settled into the hot water, after giving that mandatory jump at the first touch of the water before sinking slowly down. “Ah,” was sighed as he grabbed for the rag to soak up some of the soothing scented water before setting it over his eyes. It didn’t take much for Bruce to start sinking back deeper into the water, the lavender so soothing he’d forgotten he was supposed to just stay in for a little while and then go on to bed… Too bad he didn’t realize how deep he was sinking or how close to sleep he was until suddenly it went from blackness to someone grabbing his shoulders and pulling him out of the water, shaking him so violently he felt the other guy stirring. “Tony stop!” Bruce gasped out, pulling his hands away from his shoulders and settling back against the wall, trying to calm his pounding heart.

“Bruce, you,” Tony looked flustered, hell downright scared as he kept trying to touch him but Bruce kept batting his hands away. “JARVIS said you’d been under the water for over an hour…”

“Would you stop- what?” Bruce stopped trying to keep the hands from touching him, blinking at scared eyes watching him as he felt fingers brushing his pulse points, looking confused at Tony’s sudden fascination when he was fine. “JARVIS had to have glitched or something. I haven’t even been in the bath that long!”

“Dr. Banner, it would seem you lost consciousness and fell below the surface. I tried several times to awaken you and had to inform Sir. Your vitals hadn’t dropped so I assumed you were in no danger but it, didn’t seem that should be right.” JARVIS seemed confused on how to word it, but Bruce understood. Human+underwater=drowning and lowering heart rate. The fact that JARVIS just said Bruce’s hadn’t dropped meant something was 1) wrong with JARVIS’ sensors or 2) wrong with Bruce… Bruce already knew there were a lot of things wrong with him and not a damn thing wrong with JARVIS.

“Oh, sorry, it-it won’t happen again,” Bruce nearly whispered out as he started to recede into his shell, making the other guy even louder in the back of his mind.

“Bruce, don’t give me that bullshit! Don’t be sorry, just- If you know what happened, tell me and if you don’t, we’ll figure this out together!”

Bruce blinked up at the billionaire, correction- half soaked billionaire- looking at him as if he’d just found his best friend’s corpse in his bathroom instead of Bruce breathing and apologizing about something he couldn’t even explain. “I’m sorry, I just, I don’t really know. Weird things just keep happening to me, and I don’t just mean the anger management issues or the other guy.”

“Well, I guess the whole ‘breathing underwater’ thing is going on top of my ‘what the fuck just happened and how?’ list.” Tony smiled and reached over to grab a robe for him. “No more baths okay? Just, just until we figure this out. You really scared me you know…”

“Sorry, I- I didn’t mean to,” Bruce smiled, sadly back and stepped into the offered robe, blinking when his eyes caught the mirror and for the first time in a long time he just saw… himself. Well, not exactly. “Tony, what’s that? I don’t remember having any scars there.”

Tony blinked and turned back to look at Bruce brushing his hands along his ribs, over what looked to be- slits? “You didn’t have those before.”

Bruce smirked, “How would you know that?”

“Big guy, this isn’t the first time I’ve seen you naked. You know the other guy has no sense of modesty,” Bruce nodded in agreement, blushing softly as Tony leaned to look more closely. “Mind if I touch?”

Bruce just shrugged, flinching automatically when Tony first brushed his skin before frowning when callused fingers caught the edges of the ‘scars’. “That feels weird.”

“How ‘weird’? Jolly green weird or don’t touch me there weird?”

“Uh, I’ll have to get back to you on that… it’s not extreme enough to fall under either of those headings.” Bruce whined when Tony’s fingertips suddenly separated the scars. “Okay, don’t touch me there,” Bruce grunted as he held his ribs, trying to figure out some way of soothing the ache Tony’s brushes had caused.

Tony blinked, “Wait, let me see.” Bruce stepped away, the glare suddenly reminding Tony that, ‘yeah, the other guy definitely got his glare from Bruce’. “No touching, promise,” Tony held up his hands before locking his wrists behind his back to show he would keep his word.

Bruce bit his lip and stepped closer so Tony could see better, blinking when the other guy was staring at him in the mirror again. “Huh, he’s back…” Tony hummed at him in question. “Nothing.”

“They seemed to be gone now. Weird,” Tony said as he looked up. “You’ll call me if they show up again, right?”

“Tony, I didn’t know a damn thing about any of this until you woke me up shaking me so hard the other guy is still glaring over it,” Bruce responded, the other guy just nodded from the other side of the mirror and glared in Tony’s direction.

“Okay… no shaking, got it.”

 

Chapter 2

“Any chance we can get a blood sample when, well, whatever happens?” Tony asked the moment Bruce walked into the lab.

“Huh?” Tony took one look at the cup in his hand and knew he hadn’t had his morning tea yet.

“About the water thing from yesterday? I went through the footage,” Tony waved off the sudden “Footage?!” and continued, “from last night and JARVIS didn’t have any errors in the data. You could breathe dude. You’re O2 levels did take a slight dive but nothing beyond the normal level of a resting body. Which, by the way, how did you do that again?”

“I don’t know Tony, and since when are there cameras in the bathroom,” Bruce demanded more than asked.

Tony sighed, “It’s a safety thing Bruce, it only happened because you were in a ‘dangerous situation’. I’ve had a few black out drunk incidences in the bathroom and since then I just put cameras in with a failsafe that they only turn on in case of emergencies. You under the water for longer than a normal human can hold their breath must have triggered the cams because JARVIS caught a good 45 minutes of you just sleeping… UNDER THE WATER.”

Bruce grumbled and went up to the screen, squinting to try to make it out clearly. Tony smirked and handed him his glasses, “Thanks.”

“You know, you probably don’t need those… I mean, come on, you seemed to change your anatomy to be able to BREATHE, under the fucking water!”

“Tony, listen, weird things have always happened to me. I can’t control them, I don’t think I want to in this case, and after awhile they just stop again. So please, just stop… I understand you want to figure out how this happened, in truth I do to but I just- I don’t want this to be a permanent thing. I don’t want to deal with this too.”

“You sure you don’t want to learn to control it? I mean, come on, you who’s always ‘in control’ doesn’t want to be in control of this? Whatever this might be… Are you feeling okay Bruce?” Tony set a hand to his forehead, looking concerned.

“The other guy is-not involved in this. I know that. He’s, he’s just as confused by this as I am. It’s, it’s like he’s not even a part of this, whatever this is.”

“Been talking to your inner rage monster have you?”

“I don’t need to, just the looks he keeps giving me are putting me on edge. It’s like I’m a specimen under a microscope…”

Tony looked confused as Bruce tapped at the screen, magnifying the image and focusing on the sets of what he first interpreted as scars fluttering? Where they… gills? They were gills. “Bruce, earth to Bruce.”

“Huh?”

“I said, do you think we could reproduce it? Without drowning you or waking jolly green up…”

“Maybe? I’d have to be in complete control, I was calm when this happened. I just wanted to relax and I was so tired I just, fell asleep.” Bruce fiddled with his glasses as he tried to think of a way this could work without him overreacting to Tony’s usual ‘all or nothing’ flare to his experimentations. “None of that ‘run before walk’ crap JARVIS has mentioned… And we have to be extremely careful about my blood. It’s still essentially radiation poison in liquid form.”

“Alright, no problem, take all the time you need!” Tony was grinning ear to ear and Bruce was starting to worry about that.

 

Chapter 3

Tony scrambled back at the sudden eruption of water and –supposedly unbreakable- glass as the tank burst apart from the sheer size of its inhabitant. Okay, first note. Hulk doesn’t like cold water, neither does Bruce it seemed. “Easy there big guy. Nothing’s wrong,” Tony slipped a few times trying to get back to his feet to show he wasn’t afraid even as the giant roared and twisted around looking for a fight. “Bruce just slipped and fell into the tank, relax. There’s no one to smash.”

“No smash,” Hulk seemed almost sad. Interesting.

“Nope, sorry, you already took out the tank. That’s all there was really to smash.” Tony glanced down at the layer of water still swirling with every step Hulk took. “Woah,” Tony slid and fell just after Hulk did. “Hey now, you okay?” Hulk scrambled, trying to get back on his feet and it looked so cute Tony couldn’t stop laughing even as he gave up standing and just sat there watching.

“NO LAUGH AT HULK,” was roared at him when Hulk finally gave up standing and just sat there glaring.

“Sorry big guy, it’s funny. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t be laughing if I was sliding around like Bambi on ice,” Tony smiled and shrugged at him, Hulk chuckled while trying to look terrifying. It might have worked on anyone else. “So, you know Bambi?”

“Puny deer. Good eat.”

Tony blinked, “Odd, thought Bruce was mainly vegan or something… I never really see him eat meat if he has a choice-” Tony groaned at the thought of why he probably didn’t. After all, he doubted Hulk understood the mechanics of cooking. “That explains it. Alright big guy, sorry about the ice bath. I promise to warm the water up next time. How about you let Bruce back out and we’ll…. What’s wrong?”

“Don’t like weird-“ Hulk grunted, looking away before looking back and growling.

“Can’t find the word? It’s okay, happens to me all the time.”

Hulk snorted, “Metal Man never shut up.”

“That’s when you know I can’t think of the right word! I ramble and ramble until it comes to me, or they forget what I was originally talking about.”

“Hulk no like weird – thing. What Bruce do with water. Makes Hulk sleep,” Hulk grunted and scratched at his arm like a nervous primate before flicking a chunk of glass across the room.

“Sleep? Can you explain that a little more? Maybe a different word?” Tony scooted closer, shivering at how the cold water sloshed up to dryer parts of his body.

“It like, Bruce don’t need Hulk anymore…”

Tony frowned and reached out to pat Hulk’s leg just as he started changing, “He’ll always need you.”

“Hmm?”

“Easy Bruce, we had a little issue with greeny not liking the water temp, there’s glass everywhere and water too.”

“Told you, too cold,” Bruce mumbled as he clung to Tony when he helped him up.

“Yeah, I should have listened. Don’t worry we had a talk. I don’t think it’ll happen again.”

“Maybe we should stop this, just forget the whole thing.”

“Hell no! What kind of scientist would even think that?!”

“In my case? A smart one,” Bruce grumbled as he let Tony lead him back to his bed to sleep off the transformation.

 

Chapter 4

Bruce stumbled back, scrambling to take cover. He could remember stinging along his shoulder and back but he couldn’t really remember why Hulk let him back out in the middle of the fight. It took a few moments to get on his feet and backing away from the men circling him to figure it out. The other guy had been tranqed, to the gills if how Bruce felt was any indication, that along with how many darts he was throwing off just swiping his hand over his shoulder. He was so screwed.

“Come with us, Banner, you have no other option,” Bruce snorted, backing himself against something, he blinked at it long enough to realize it was stone. “We won’t hurt you if you come quietly.”

“Apparently you weren’t around the first time Ross tried that,” Bruce scrambled over the debris, landing hard between the boulders and closing his eyes. He really just wanted to disappear right now…

Bruce didn’t dare look, some ingrained non-sense about ‘if I can’t see them, they can’t see me’ kicked in long enough for him to keep his eyes clenched shut and his hands to dig into the stone. Someone shouted his name, he must have fallen far enough between the rocks not to be seen, before they all scampered on. Maybe he just got lucky and they got called back? Or maybe they saw some other half naked guy running… yeah right, his life was NOT that charmed. “Bruce? Hey, I know you’re in there,” Tony’s synthesized voice called and Bruce finally opened his eyes. “JEEZ! What the…”

Bruce blinked, looking confused before he reached out, “Little help?”

“Sure thing Dragon Heart,” Tony shook his head and pulled Bruce up, utterly fascinated at how the dark stone hues left his skin the moment his touch left the stone. “Wow, okay… so it’s not just water.”

Bruce brushed off his arms, “Yeah?”

“Oh yeah, I’ll have JARVIS show you when we get back to the tower,” Tony looped an arm around Bruce’s waist. “You got your pants secure this time?”

“As secure as they’re gonna be,” Bruce grumbled and held tight as Tony took off.

“You are going to have to explain what the hell just happened,” Tony’s voice carried over the wind but Bruce still had to strain to hear it.

“I don’t really know, I just- I just wanted them not to see me…”

“So you went all Gargoyle on them and turned to stone?!”

Bruce blinked, “What?” He didn’t think he heard that correctly…

 

Chapter 5

 

“I think I have someone that can help figure this out,” Tony announced as he accidently interrupted Bruce’s meditation. “Shit, sorry,” he rambled as he turned to leave the room.

“No, it’s okay, I was finished anyway. Just, sort of distracted today is all. After the whole stone thing,” Bruce mumbled as he looked out from the den toward the clear sky. “I found something on the landing pad…” Bruce set down a cloth, smiling sadly and unwrapping what looked like a falcon’s feather. “When I picked it up, well I think it might be easier to show you.”

Tony was about to say something. He really was, but when he saw Bruce reach out and grip the small feather in his hand he was speechless. The moment he touched it, the oddest thing happened, what looked like scales rippled up his arm. Pinions sprouting just below the elbow as feathers flared. Tony gasped and grabbed for his arm just as Bruce dropped the feather. Tony had a chance to feel the soft down just as it faded back to skin and hair. “Holy… wow. You, you can control it now?”

“Not really, I think I know how it works though. I just, stay calm and it seems to work on its own. I just grab something and it just happens. Though I’m not sure how it worked that way earlier when I was freaked out and scared. That might have been instinctual.”

“And this works with anything?”

“Anything so far, the water, the feather, the stone…” Bruce bit at his lip, “I think I want to continue testing, I want to see what this is.”

“Now that you’re not afraid of it anymore,” Tony smiled and patted his shoulder. “Alright, I’ve got a few calls to make, why don’t you see about what all that works on while I’m gone? Oh, and what do you want for lunch, while I’m thinking about it?”

“Fish?” Tony froze, turning to blink at the shy look Bruce was giving him. “Well, fish or bird, I don’t really care which,” he smiled and nodded toward the feather, so it seemed there was some residual effect…

“Alright! Fish it is! I’ll be back in a while.” Bruce nodded and carried the cloth wrapped feather over the bar, wanting a drink for the first time since… a very long time. Too bad that was too bad of an idea to indulge.

 

Epilogue

 

Tony was rambling to his guest, that in and of itself would make Pepper probably keel over laughing/twitching because it wasn’t a supermodel or playboy bunny he was rambling to but Professor Charles Xavier. “Tony, please, slow down. You’re giving me a headache,” Tony winced, forgetting fast talking mouth plus fast moving thoughts equals prof with a migraine and that usually meant bad things…

“Sorry Prof, it’s just, exciting really. You wouldn’t believe the breakthroughs we’ve had just in early testing stages! It’s just… wow,” Tony smirked, trying to keep his thoughts guarded, not to keep the professor out of his mind but to try to keep the worst of his twenty thousand thoughts a minute brain from giving the poor man a headache. “Bruce,” Tony called once they entered the den. He blinked at the emptiness of it. “Bruce, come on, I know you’re here!”

Bruce suddenly appeared the moment he let his hand drop away from the glass, “Sorry… just, kinda forgot myself.” Bruce smiled shyly then blinked at the wheelchair circling around Tony. “Hello, I’m sorry, I didn’t know you had company.”

“It’s alright Dr. Banner, I’m Professor Charles Xavier. I’m a mutant, like you I believe.”

“Tony mentioned something about the x-gene… I just brushed that off as the other guy messing with my DNA.”

Professor Xavier shook his head softly, “I believe you’ve had it for a long time Dr. Banner. I have reason to believe you’ve been able to use these abilities of yours since you were very young. It may, in fact, be the reason you’re still alive when that incident otherwise should have killed you.”

Bruce rolled his eyes, “Oh, yeah, everyone always wants to thank the other guy…”

“That’s not what I’m saying Dr. Banner, I’m saying the ‘other guy’ was caused by your mutation. It was you adapting to the incident. You were angry, with yourself, with the experiment, with- well, whatever deity you choose that that happened to you. The fact that your anger was linked with the ‘other guy’ is coincidental only. When you were trapped, waiting for death, alone/scared/angry, your mutation adapted to that. It took the radiation that should have killed you and in turn changed you so you could feed off it, become stronger and be able to survive it. The mutation is what caused the being ‘Hulk’. Instinct is what brings him out. It’s your powers protecting you where you couldn’t or wouldn’t protect yourself.”

Bruce glared at the floor, making a soft sound of acknowledgement yet indifference at the statement before turning back toward the wall of glass. “JARVIS, blinds please,” the windows darkened to black as the overhead lighting slowly brightened to keep the room illuminated. “Is that true?”

Tony’s eyes were huge. How the hell had he never noticed that before?! Hulk was in the blackened reflection, his chest heaving so hard he was sure he’d fog the glass if Bruce was any closer to it. Hulk dipped his head before glaring around at the other humans, his mouth moved but nothing reached their ears.

Bruce smiled at Hulk, “Hulk always protect Bruce. Never hurt, always help. Smash puny attackers when Bruce too weak or scared to protect self.”

“Or too stupid to fight,” Bruce added, confusing the others until Hulk looked to be laughing before nodding and smirking at them. “They’re trying to help me too, to get me to fight for myself and not just run or hide.”

“Smart humans. Bruce learn now? Stop fighting Hulk?”

Bruce frowned, “I can’t promise I’ll stop fighting… but, yeah, I’m learning.”

“Learning good. Stop fighting later, Hulk like fighting.”

Bruce laughed, “You know that’s an oxymoron right?”

Hulk shrugged in the reflection before settling down to watch Bruce go back to talking with the others, Tony kept looking over at him and smiling. Bruce laughed when he waved and Hulk raised a hand back before smacking him and ducking half a million questions about his reflection while planning with the professor about how he could go about learning and testing his mutation/powers they called them, in a better, more secure environment.


End file.
